Promise
by Herebedragons66
Summary: Flemeth looks back on the day Prince Maric and Loghain visited her in the Korcari Wilds during the Occupation. SPOILERS for "The Stolen Throne." This has now been rendered hopelessly AU since the 4th issue of "The Silent Grove" comic.


It is possible that the "gift" of seeing the future is actually the most abysmal curse imaginable. Or perhaps the seeing wasn't the problem. Perhaps it was my own fault for being incapable of planting only those seeds that were absolutely necessary. I can never quite manage to keep myself from planting others just for fun.

It's not as though I really cared about the occupation of Ferelden. Well, perhaps I cared a little; I was born in Highever. But I didn't act from any desire to drive out the Orlesians. I acted to set something in motion. Something I had glimpsed, and believed that just maybe I could bring to pass.

When the young prince – that foolish, naïve, ridiculous and surprisingly charming prince – escaped into the forest, I couldn't let the opportunity pass. I could have helped him from afar. I could have arranged for him to ascend the throne with almost no bloodshed, and far quicker than it took him to do it on his own. But I couldn't resist the opportunity to play, just a little.

When Maric and his resentful companion stumbled into my front "garden," I was so certain that I knew what would happen, so certain that with only a gentle breath in one direction or the other, I could guide everything into place. For years, certainly, everything went according to plan. But now I've learned that one of the unnecessary seeds I planted might have grown fruit that would poison all my efforts.

"Keep him close and he will betray you. Each time worse than the last." What I said about the surly Loghain Mac Tir simply wasn't true. There was nothing of prophecy in it, not even the self-fulfilling kind, as it turned out. It was a lie, one I told just to amuse myself. And it did prove amusing, many times over the years, in spite of never leading to any actual betrayal. All it led to was a great deal of self-doubt and even more self- loathing on the part of a man I'd never expected to climb as high as he climbed. I'd ask the Maker to damn Loghain Mac Tir for the inconvenience he caused me, only I'm fairly certain the Maker would laugh in my face.

That night, inside the close warmth of my hut, with Loghain shivering outside next to a fire I had made certain would not thoroughly warm him, I spoke to Maric of things to come. With the taste of a ripe apple still on my lips, I spoke of things I had seen and of things I hoped to see. Not that I told Maric which was which. I let him believe they were all fated, written in the stars and glimpsed by the most arcane magic. I told him of the Blight that would come, one of the things I'd genuinely foreseen.

And of course, that made it easy for him to agree to the promise.

"One day, some years from now, the Grey Wardens will return to Ferelden." I eyed him closely. "I trust you know of the Grey Wardens."

Maric had nodded. "Of course. They are an order of warriors who fight darkspawn, and end Blights."

"They are more than just an order of warriors." I was disappointed he would focus only on those who fought with swords. "The Grey Wardens are not particular about whom they recruit." I shrugged. "But you will learn that for yourself when the time comes.

"The promise I require of you is this: when the Grey Wardens return to Ferelden, you must give them whatever assistance they request."

"That's it?" Maric sounded confused. "You want me to promise to help the Grey Wardens? Nothing more?" He looked at her through narrowed eyes. It sounded too simple. What could they possibly ask that he wouldn't have been willing to give anyway? Money? Recruits? The assistance of Ferelden's armies? When he was the king, Maric supposed he would agree to anything they wanted, if it meant ending a Blight.

I had laughed then, a boisterous cackling laugh, causing Maric to flinch. "You may find that what they ask will not be as easy as you imagine. Or perhaps what they ask will be something you greatly desire. It is difficult to say."

Then, I had fixed him with my gaze.

Is it vain of me to say that I fixed him with the gaze that had stopped grown men in their tracks? That had led hundreds to their deaths? The gaze that was the last thing my husband saw before I blasted him into the Black City?

No, it's not vanity. It is merely the truth. I have done a great many powerful magics, and my reputation is such that people bow before me, even when I don't especially want them to.

Although, it does amuse me even now to think that, of the many stories that are told about me, not one of them managed to hit upon the truth. The truth of what had really happened in the tallest tower of Highever Castle where I had been imprisoned by my husband for the crime of falling in love with another man. Yes, I called a demon to me, and yes, I used the demon's power to help me destroy Conobar and as many of his men as I cared to slaughter. Not enough of them, apparently. I left alive the captain of the guard, Sarim Cousland, and now one of his descendants was proving to be the fly in my ointment. Be that as it may, in all the stories, I am possessed by the demon and become an abomination. How is it possible that no one ever realized the demon was not the one in control?

But where was I? Oh yes. I fixed my gaze on Maric. And he stared at me in silence, his head cocked to one side. He was wondering, I supposed, if there wasn't some sort of trick involved. Was I asking him to agree to something I hadn't fully explained, and he didn't yet understand? This was genuinely hilarious. Of course I was asking him to do something he didn't understand. Something he never would understand. While Maric had many admirable qualities, an excess of cleverness was not among them. I had seen the relationship he would forge with the elven mage Fiona, herself a Grey Warden. And the son they would have together. That was a true vision, albeit blurry, like watching fish swimming in a running stream. But I felt equally certain he would never connect the promise he made to me with anything that happened with her. Even though that was the point of much I had done that night.

"So, you are willing to make me this promise? And never speak of it, not to anyone, ever?" He had given his word before entering my house, and couldn't really back out of it now. But he had shown excellent manners upon his arrival, and I thought politeness was the least I could do to return the favor.

"Yes. I promise. When the Grey Wardens return to Ferelden, I will give them whatever assistance they ask of me."

I nodded, satisfied, and then crossed the room, kneeling beside the chair where he sat. I had planted all my seeds, and now I wanted Maric to plant one of his.

"There is one more thing I would ask of you tonight." I had spoken in a quiet, seductive voice that was quite unlike me. I still don't really know why. I could have forced him to do whatever I wanted. But I am a woman, after all, and on that night I wanted him to come to me willingly.

"What is that?" His voice was barely more than a whisper.

I placed my hand on his arm. Projecting a glamour, so he would see me as I had been when I was young and my hair was dark and my lips were red, and I possessed a beauty others had described as "wild," I looked up into his face.

"Lay with me."

His eyes grew wide. "You want me to . . . what?"

"Lay with me," I had repeated. The glamour was working. I knew he found me beautiful. This was going to be easier than I had imagined. So, again, I decided to play with him. Just a bit. "Do I not please you?" I asked. "I could look different." I shifted my features to those of the woman to whom Maric had been betrothed at birth. "Perhaps you would prefer Rowan beneath you? Or someone more exotic?" I assumed the visage of an elf, and gazed up at him through violet-tinted eyes. "What shall it be?" Then I became myself again, holding onto just the tiniest bit of hope that this was what he would choose.

Maric shook his head as if to clear it. "What magic is this?" he asked.

I laughed. "What sort of magic do you want it to be?" I stood, and took one of his hands in my own, pulling him to stand in front of me.

"Lay with me," I whispered. Then, I leaned up so my lips were less than an inch from his. "Lay me with . . . King Maric."

He came to me then, and planted the seed that was the cornerstone of all my plans for the future. I had known he would; one of the few things I'd seen with clarity was the dark-haired girl who be born from our union. Later, he would sire another child, with the elven warden, that one a son with golden hair. Both children carrying royal blood. Not that the children needed royal blood for my ritual to succeed. I only nurtured those particular seedlings because it amused me.

Afterwards, I heard quiet footsteps outside the window of the hut as the man who was not yet Maric's friend tried to peer in the window. I told the future king it was time for him to go. At the door, Maric turned back to me. "Who are you? I mean, really. Who are you?"

Oh, how I had laughed. "You know my name. Asha'bellanar. Or Flemeth, if you prefer. You could call me Clarabelle, if you like. It's all the same to me. What you really want to know is iwhat/i am I. Isn't that right?" He nodded, having the good grace to look embarrassed. "I suppose that what I am depends on who you ask. Am I the Witch of the Wilds? An abomination? A prophet, a seer? Or merely an old hag who talks too much?" I stepped close to him, looking directly into his eyes. Maric shifted nervously, but didn't look away. Good. When he had arrived, I hadn't been particularly impressed. If anything, his companion had shown the stronger will, and far more of the rage which kept people focused on their goals long after those who did things merely for "love" had given up. But now I saw strength in the boy, and hoped it would be enough to carry him through. For his sake, and mine.

pI gave him an honest answer. Not that I wasn't frequently honest when it suited me, but this felt different. As though I owed him something, some small boon, for all that he was giving to me. "Since you asked me what I am, I'll tell you. I am a woman. A woman who has known love and pain and power and sorrow, and wants . . . to not always be so alone."

That night, I believed in the vision I had foreseen: a child, conceived during a dark ritual and born of an old god and of two parents of royal birth, a child I could bind to me. Not a daughter, but for the first time in my life, a son. A child I could raise to be whatever I wanted him to be.

As time passed, I continued to believe. My daughter grew into the woman I made her. Maric's son was fostered in secret, protecting him until he reached manhood.

Even tonight, having learned that the archdemon has appeared, and the Wardens will leave in the morning for Denerim to face it and end the Blight, part of me still believes. The Cousland girl who was forced to join the Wardens will do anything to save her beloved Ferelden. And my daughter is with her. The moment I had foreseen all those long years ago is at hand. All that must happen is for my daughter to perform the ritual with a warden, one who carries the darkspawn taint. Together, they would conceive a new being who would be more than any being that had ever walked this earth, and who would belong to me. So close to succeeding, and yet it was possible that everything would fall apart, now, at the end.

Because I hadn't foreseen that the man I created with that tiny little lie - "keep him close and he will betray you" - would come back to haunt me. That those words had shaped an outlaw, the son of farmers, into something he would not have otherwise become. A man capable of monstrosities, as well as acts of supreme self-sacrifice and loyalty. Both the greatest hero Ferelden had seen in centuries, and the man who had fallen so far he seemed beyond redemption. The sort of man that an impressionable young woman would find herself unable to kill, so he was now a Grey Warden as well. Maric's bastard had abandoned her and the Wardens, and she had needed someone at her side. It was even possible that she loved him.

So the Cousland girl would ask Loghain Mac Tir to perform the ritual, and if he refused, all my plans would be in ruins. I feared he would say a child conceived in this manner could someday threaten Ferelden. Instead, he would insist on sacrificing himself so the earnest young woman who had become his commander could survive. If she loved him enough to convince him that he needed to do this for her sake, it is possible he would agree, but that seemed unlikely. And that would be, as they say, the end of that.

The limits of magic are frustrating at times. They are also perhaps the only things entertaining enough to keep me going all these many years.

Ah well. I would know soon enough what the girl decided. And things were stirring elsewhere. This business with the mages in Kirkwall would be amusing to watch. And apples were ripening on the trees. How I do love apples.

_The old woman threw back her head, and laughed._


End file.
